Good-bye, and good riddance

The Pear Shaped Football Genius is hanging up his whistle. Bill Parcells announced his “retirement” from coaching, leaving the Cowboys in chaos and the sheep bleating in panic.

I say: Good. It’s about friggin’ time. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Parcells’ tenure in Dallas can only be termed a failure. Is the team in better shape than it was when he took over? Yes, of course it is. But that’s saying nothing. Parcells took over after the Barry Switzer-Chan Gailey-Dave Campo fiascoes. Any competent football guy should have been able to improve on the sorry state of affairs found at Valley Ranch after that series of nincompoops.

But, really. How much better are things?

Maybe we’ve got a QB, but I’m not convinced yet. Romo started out great, but faded badly down the stretch. What can we expect from here on? First-Five-Games-Tony, or Collapse-Down-The-Stretch-Tony? I don’t know. Neither do you. And if the latter is the real Romo, what’s the alternative?

Running backs? Barber and Jones look like very average NFL backs to me. Both are capable of flashes of brilliance, but both are capable of turning in a 35-yard day as well. Are things better? Yeah, probably, but not a lot.

Receivers? Glenn is greatness, but not getting younger. TO Owens was a massive disappointment and clearly not worth the baggage he brings. Witten is OK, but by no means an elite TE, at least not yet. Crayton is promising, but difficult to see as a real star. The youngsters? Hard to tell, but probably not a real break-out guy there, or at least no outward signs of one yet.

O line? It’s certainly not as bad as it looked last year, but, again, there really aren’t any young guys here. They also started to show cracks down the stretch. Some work is needed here as well.

On defense, the 3-4 appears to be a failure. Absolutely ZERO pass rush spelled doom for the rest of the overmatched unit. Can this group run a 4-3 instead? Hell if I know.

The defensive secondary is average, but only because two decent corners are balanced out by two terrifying safeties. This team has never figured out what to do with Roy Williams – they’ve never managed to play to his considerable strengths while hiding his glaring and costly weaknesses. Is it better than it was in the Campo days? The corners are definitely more talented, but overall, I think Campo fielded better defenses.

The linebackers, supposedly an area of depth, are, with very few exceptions, just plain bad. With the exception of Ware, who should be a down lineman, would you trade this bunch for Dexter Coakley, Godfrey Miles, Dat Ngyuen, or some of the others in the previous generation? Give me the old boys.

The D line is difficult to judge. Jason Ferguson seems like a competent run stuffer. Canty and Spears? I dunno. Do they do better in a 4-3? Maybe. It does seem like the personnel is better than the Kavika Pittman/Ebeneezer Ekuban days, although it must be noted that Ekuban has gone on to be a contributor in Denver. The personnel may be better, but the results are certainly not.

And on the nutty special teams, it’s as much chaos as it’s ever been. Grammatica is not a long term solution at kicker, although McBriar should be this team’s punter for the next decade. Austin and Thompson, when back from injury, seem to be decent runback guys, but how hard are those to find, really?

The coaching ranks are mostly an unknown, since none of them have been allowed to say a public word in four years. The loss of at least three of them in the past two weeks certainly can’t be good news, although you’d assume that whoever takes over would want to bring in his own guys anyway.

When we look at the results Parcells obtained, how can we conclude anything other than failure? Jerry handed over the keys to the castle. Parcells got what he wanted in almost every area. And what do we have to show for it? No division titles, two one-and-done trips to the playoffs, and a progress arrow which is pointing due East. It’s difficult to predict much of an upward trend regardless of who’s calling the shots.

And for all this, we were subjected to four years of Parcells treating the media and the fans like a bunch of retarded children. His condescending press conferences were the BIGGEST waste of time since Sudoku. Did he EVER answer a tough question? Hell, was he ever ASKED a tough question? All I remember is a bunch of mildly entertaining stories about the good old Giant days, and shed-loads of “don’t waste my time with your stupid questions” arrogance.

I wrote about this a long time ago. I’ve been sick of this guy's bit for at least a year. I have no idea what’s next, and I suspect it may be back to the Gailey-Campo No-Name-Carousel, but I have to tell you I’m glad to see that pompous jerk go. I, for one, won’t miss him at all.